Record numbers take part in latest maths challenge

A record number of students took part in this year’s UK Maths Trust Intermediate Challenge on 7 February.

Nearly 260 000 students aged between 13 and 16 took part in the event, which is sponsored by the Profession. The challenge consists of 25 multiple choice questions to be answered in one hour. The aim is to get students thinking about mathematics outside the confines of the school curriculum. The paper is marked out of 135 points, and this year 14 of the competitors managed to score full marks.

The top 500 students were invited to take part in the Cayley, Hamilton and Maclaurin follow-on papers last month. In addition, a further 1700 have been invited to sit a pan-European paper in April.